Efficient Way to Jump to Distant Record

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byman2030

I am new to Access2000, and I am looking for an efficent way a user can jump
from one record in a table to one that is far away in that same table.

Orignally, I wanted to confine the user to the form view. But the navigation
control only moves one record at a time or jumps to the end. If a record is
200 records away that requires 200 tedious clicks to get there. Too much
work for the user.

So, I am thinking it may be best to start the user with the datasheet view
instead of the form view. I could then include a search field that will
jump the record pointer based on what is typed in the search box. If the
user types "Smith," the record pointer will start from the top and jump to
the first "Smith" alphabetically.

Since the user is already in datasheet view, it would be easy to select the
exact "Smith" from there sicne the user could see multiple Smiths at one
glance.

The user can then double click the exact Smith and a form would pop up with
that exact record for editing.
 
Tables in Access are just big buckets o' data. There is no inherent order
to the records.

When you connect a form to a set of data, you can either connect directly to
a table, or you can connect to a query you've written that gets data from
the table. The latter approach gives you a way to impose order (say,
alphabetical order, sort by LastName and FirstName). An even better
approach uses a parameter query, and gets the value of the parameter from
your form (see next paragraph).

If you want to "jump" to a record, consider creating an unbound combo box in
the header of the form. Base the combo box on a query that returns the
recordID and the LastName (and FirstName). If you leave the width of the
recordID field (the first field in your query) at 0 (zero), it won't be
displayed (but it will be available).

In the combo box's AfterUpdate event, you can requery the form (which you
based on a query that uses the value in the combo box to pick a record to
display).

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP
 
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